


Could Have Gone Differently

by ViennaFanficProductions



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, One-sided feelings, Period-Typical Homophobia, Self-Denial
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 02:29:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5440121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViennaFanficProductions/pseuds/ViennaFanficProductions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THIS IS AN INDIVIDUALLY WRITTEN STORY. PLEASE READ OUR CHARACTER DESRIPTION TO KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS. Canon Divergence AU where we mostly concentrate in detail on the journey to Atlantis - especially the evenings and nights of camping. Homosexual Milo and in denial Rourke gets tangled together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could Have Gone Differently

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Thing I Could Not Possess](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5380037) by [TheIncredibleIbex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIncredibleIbex/pseuds/TheIncredibleIbex). 



> I recently watched the movie again after 10 years or so, and got reminded how much I actually loved this as a kid.  
> When I checked out the fanfictions here, I stumbled upon TheIncredibleIbex's 'A Thing I Could Not Possess', and strange shippy feelings got me under their powers. So I started to write this.
> 
> This most probably will not be too long, with relatively short chapters.
> 
> Enjoy!

There was really not much to him. He was a man of his work, and a man of money. How convenient it was, that his work happened to bring him a lot of money. Usually no one asked him why he needs so much money. The truth was, in all honesty, not so special or ground-breaking. The plain fact was, he did not _need_ money, he just wanted it, for the simplest of reasons there was. Fame or power did not really interest him anymore – he was well known in his field of work, and could he have more power than being the leader of every single group he worked with in the past ten years? His reasons were mundane and simple, materialistic. He just wanted to be rich – who doesn’t want that? There might be people running around with noble reasons of trying to feed their family, taking care of their aged parents, wanting to fund a research to cure a horrible illness, whatever works really. Everyone seemed to have a reason, even the ones who did not, but Rourke did not bother with sugar-coating it. If someone would ask, he would tell it. He would tell that he wants to be rich, so that whenever he feels like it he can just travel to the other side of the earth, spend his time in luxury while drinking champagne with caviar and throwing money at the waiters. He wants it that when he is too old to do this anymore, he could lean back and spend as much money as he wants, with quite some still remaining, from which he would buy the most glorious funeral for himself, when the time comes. And he did know it well, that after this job, that he was about to sign the papers for, would bring just as much money, even if he will need to split it with the others. Which, he hoped, will not be necessary. Many people die during such an expedition – accident or not.

 

When the day came, when they would all sink underwater on the biggest submarine ever known to man, the volume of this mission became more evident to him than ever. Discovering Atlantis was surely as much of a scientific breakthrough as discovering penicillin, or most probably even bigger. Not just culturally, but in other ways as well – a long lost culture might have such discoveries or technology that is not known, for one reason or another, to the people on the surface. If they find nothing else but this enormous power source, of which the old Thatch could not shut up about, they are already more rich than half the world combined, and they would surely find more than that.

 

He did not have much time to muse about that, as he saw that Whitmore and the young Mr. Thatch enter the scene. He already saw pictures of the young man – when he was around seven, that is. The old Thatch carried tons of pictures with himself of his wife, son, and grandson. Most of them were of his grandson, proudly holding up in his muddy hands something that looked like an arrowhead, putting his grandfather’s clothes on himself, pretending to be an adventurer – things that children usually do. Rourke knew that the boy must have been around eighteen when they found that journal, so he found it strange that Thaddeus only had pictures of him as a child. In any account, however, this was the first time he ever saw him in person, and he certainly did not resemble that little child anymore – the only tell-tale sign that it’s the same person were the enormous round glasses.

 

He needed no more than a few words and a handshake to see that the family resemblance was strong. Milo Thatch, just like his grandfather, was awkward and clumsy. With Thaddeus it was just not as evident, thanks to his long years of experience – something this boy still lacked, the potential was however evident.

 

He reminded him strongly – apart from Thaddeus Thatch – to a young man he knew as a child. A neighbour, a young physicist if Rourke remembers right. He really liked this young man back then, and his parents also had a good relationship with him, until one point, every connection stopped between them. As a child Rourke did not know why, and for long years afterwards he was in the dark. Whenever he asked his parents, they would only say that a child is not fit to be near such a gentleman with certain preferences. Rourke was barely ten back then – he had no idea what that meant. He talked much with the young man, whom often even helped with his homework. He tended to go on and on about his field of work – which Milo thatch also like to do, as it turned out merely hours later on the submarine – so Rourke thought his parents meant his passion for science as ‘preference’. This was the initial reason why he later became a quite cruel bully in school, not tolerating people with this ‘certain preference’. How ignorant children can be, and how cowardly can parents be, for not daring to explain what was really going on.

Growing up Lyle Rourke of course realised that was not what his parents meant. Not only growing up, collecting life experience and knowledge around himself helped realising that, but also a terrible tragedy which happened when he was twenty-one.

 

On the night, when this sympathetic neighbour was found beaten to death, it finally became clearer than light to Lyle why this young physicist, who was a rather successful researcher by that time, needed to die a horrible death. He understood why he needed to die in his own apartment, his head cracked open and the word ‘fag’ written all over his apartment’s wall.

 

Homosexuality is a felony in every state – even if some of them are not so strict – but as any felony it cannot be reported in lack of evidence. If this young man was accidentally discovered by Rourke’s parents, they did not report him either because they did not feel necessary or simply because they did not have evidence other than their words. But some people like to take the law in their own hands, and like to play judge and executioner at the same time.

 

So interesting, that he did not think of this ever since. He even almost forgot the face of that man. But now, memories and thoughts rushed into his head, leaving broken images and unwanted pity behind, and a strange soft feeling towards this young linguist, which was even more unwanted than the pity for a dead man.

 

Unfortunately, he did not have enough time to think about this in deeper levels, preferably alone in his cabin. Barely more than six hours after the start of their mission they have already lost eighty per cent of their crew along with a general amount of food and other supplies, not to mention the submarine itself. Losing so many of them at the beginning was surely not a good sign, and it made their chances of survival drop to at least half of what they were originally expecting. At least they still had everything necessary to take camp, which was what they did almost immediately after arriving on dry land again. 


End file.
